Back Again

I am back in Melbourne again after a holiday in WA. Now that I am back to real life have a huge "To Do List" that I need to tackle.

Here is a picture of how the birthday cake turned out. I am already working out improvements in my head for the next cake. Mum helped me put chocolate on the outside of the cake to pretty it up and I now want to master that process.

Mmmm.....cake!

I am flying over to WA today to help mum celebrate her 60th birthday. I am in charge of the birthday cake, so before I left I thought I would test out an idea I had and see how it worked.

The cake is a chocolate mud cake. I have cut it in half and on top of the bottom layer there is a layer of whipped cream and then some raspberry syrup that I cooked up on the stove with some frozen raspberries and sugar, then another layer of mud cake and then chocolate ganache. It is finished off with some raspberries on top for decoration. It looks a little rustic , so I will try and neaten the edges when I make the real thing. I actually cracked the top piece while flipping it onto the the rest of the cake so I used the chocolate ganache to glue it back it together and it wasn't too noticeable. I guess I need some practice in that department!

I was going to link to the recipe for the mud cake which I found on Taste.com but the recipe is no longer available. I will type the recipe up and post it when I get a chance so you can have a try. Even if you don't want to bother with the raspberries and cream, it's worth trying the mud cake. The recipe is super simple and it uses a whole block of chocolate so of course it tastes pretty fantastic.

Sunday Stash #20

I am diverging away from fabric for my stash this week. This is a vintage embroidery kit I picked up from Savers Footscray last time I was there. The finished product is meant to be sewn up into a cushion.


It came with a piece of linen/cotton that has the embroidery design (cross stitch) printed on in black. The fabric was the only thing in the packet. I am sure originally it came with some instructions and the thread needed to replicate the photo. I guess I will have to work out the colours myself, using the photo as a guide. I plan on giving it a go very soon.

Do Try This at Home

I have mentioned the breakfast crumble from Mitte before - it's fantastic in case you haven't heard. Those of you not in Melbourne can now have a taste of what it's like too, only you will have to cook it for yourselves. The current copy of Delicious magazine has the recipe on page 50, so if you have been wondering what it tastes like, now is your chance.

Sunday Stash #19

I bought this fabric off etsy from twogreenchickens. It's going to be clothing I think.

For the Dog Lovers

Have a mentioned that I am a massive dog lover ? I don't think I have so far... well I am and I have just discovered the Daily Puppy website. I am not sure why it took me so long to find out about it. There is a new puppy for every day of the week. How fantastic!

Swimming Pool Cake Recipe

I took an unexpected trip to WA last week to visit a sick relative who was seriously ill. Thankfully she is on the mend now and while I was there I managed to get a copy of the swimming pool cake recipe from from the Woman's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book. I might just make one for my next birthday.

Happy Birthday to Me!

It's my birthday today and reading Shannon's post over at Rabbit and the Duck got me reminiscing about the birthday cakes mum used to make my brothers and me from the Woman's Weekly Childrens Birthday Cake Book. Each year we would choose a cake for mum to make and one year I asked for the swimming pool cake.

Yes that's me in the photo on my 5th birthday with my Nonna and I look like I am getting ready to blow out the candles. The swimming pool cake had green jelly in the middle which was meant to be the water with little plastic dolls swimming in it alongside cocktail umbrellas and the whole cake had tim tams lined around the outside. Mum always did a fantastic job at replicating the cakes in the book. The recipe called for chocolate biscuit sticks to be used on the outside but hey, you really can't do better than tim tams.

Our almond tree is showing signs of life again with pretty pink blossoms that will eventually turn into nuts for us to harvest . I just hope the birds don't get to them before we do this season. Last time we had a flock of Sulphur Crested Cockatoos eat most of the crop which was disappointing on the almond front but fascinating to watch at the same time. Fingers crossed.

Sunday Stash #18

Liberty Tana lawn from Patchwork on Central Park. I only have two small pieces left in this.

I have made some brooches out of it. One of which you can find in my etsy shop here and one on Leeloo here

See everyone else's stash here.

Unveiling the New Look Pin Oak Crescent

Excuse the crap photo, I have no idea how to use our new scanner.

Moonee Valley Council has just completed some road works on Pin Oak Crescent where Cyclic Bicycles is located and to celebrate they are having an opening/unveiling event.

There will be free activities and entertainment on the day including:

• Roving entertainment
• Balloon for kids
  
• Face painting
• surprise giveaways

Date: Saturday 1st August
Time: 10am - 1pm with the official opening at 10.30am
Location: Pin Oak Crescent Flemmington

So if you are in the neighbourhood why not drop by. All the shops are up and running again including Flowers by Janelouise, White Pony, Made Cafe and Cyclic Bicycles so it is a good day to get out and do some shopping.

Sunday Stash #19

I thought I would show you something different from my stash today. Some cute vintage hankies I picked up a few weeks ago. I have two in each colourway and thought I could use them for brooches.

Want to play Sunday Stash? You can do so here

Don't forget about the DUST team sale. We aren't having a lot of entries in the prize draw so you have a good chance of winning something. All you have to do to enter is to pick something from one of the participating shops, show us a link to the item you like and tell us what you like about it. It's that easy, prizes are drawn every 3 hours or so and you can enter each round. Find out more here. You will need an etsy username though.

Christmas in July Sale Starts Now

The DUST team Christmas in July Sale is NOW ON!

As part of the sale ruby-jo is offering 30% off the listed price of all brooches! Doesn't include postage.

Every store that is participating in the festivities is having some kind of sale. The full list of shops can be found here.

As part of the sale there will be ❉ GIVEWAYS ❉ throughout the entire weekend from different members of the DUST team.

To win something you will need to keep an eye on this thread here. There is an assortment of prizes on offer, one of which will be a brooch from me.

The sale runs from Saturday July 25th through Sunday July 26th, although a lot of the DUSTers have started their sale from now. To cater for international customers many shops will also extend the sale to finish at 12noon on Monday 27th July (Sunday night American time). Check each store for individual details.

and have fun shopping!

Just Listed

The latest batch of vintage embroidery brooches waiting and ready for the Dust Christmas in July Sale.

SALE Sneak Peak!

Next weekend the etsy Down Under Street Team (DUST) is having a HUGE Christmas in July sale.

From the 25th to the 26th July every shop participating (including me!) will be offering some kind of sale for their customers. There will be lots of lovely hand made goodies on offer and the chance to win some fabulous prizes from Australian sellers (including one of my brooches).

You can find the shops participating in the sale here, so why not have a browse and mark some favorites ready for the weekend ahead.

In my ruby-jo shop I will be offering 30% off all of my brooches.

Stay tuned for more details closer to the date...

Foodgawker

I might be a little late to the party but I just discovered foodgawker.com. It's a great site for finding new recipes and discovering some delightful food blogs along the way. It's a good thing looking at food doesn't put on kilos!

Sunday Stash #19

I am now the proud owner of Paint by Numbers Birds in red by Erin Michael for Moda, thanks for GJ's Discount Fabrics in Brunswick. I had given up trying to find the fabric as it seemed to have sold out everywhere but I was lucky enough to stumble across some at GJ's. There was only 1.2m left on the roll so I bought the whole lot. I want to use it as a trim on a skirt for myself and maybe some bags.

If you want to play Sunday Stash you can do so here.

Trip to Ballarat

We (man, dog and me) took a trip to Ballarat for an overnight stay on Monday to get away from it all for a short time. It was my first visit to Ballart and the highlight (for me at least) was exploring the many antique stores on offer. You can see in the photos some of the goodies I came home with.

1st photo from Joyce’s Junkatique (next door to Antiques, Goods and Chattels) It's not an antique store but pretty much what the name suggests, a shop packed full of junk including the many rooms out the back. The bonus is if you are lucky enough to find something worth buying you won’t be pay much for it.


2nd photo from Antiques, Goods and Chattels - 30 Main Road Ballarat East. They had such an amazing collection of vintage treasures including a selection of peoples old sewing tins and boxes with various collections of threads, needles buttons and other bits and pieces inside.


3rd photo from Alexa’s Treasures - 46 Sturt St Ballarat. Amazing is how I would describe the shop, they have a wonderful collection of china as well as a huge shelf packed tightly with doily’s, linens and buttons. I am kicking myself for not buying one of their beautiful vintage tea cups.

The trip was fun despite a few things not going entirely to plan including a bed and breakfast that didn’t want us to let our dog inside, despite advertising themselves as “pet friendly” (we snuck him in when we went to bed anyway because the temperature dropped to about 1 degree overnight) and a brewery where we had planned to spend our evening with drinks and tapas not opening on a Monday night in winter. We turned up to the brewery ready for dinner at 7pm only to find out they were closed.

I can’t wait to go back and do some more exploring.

Sunday Stash #19

This is an interesting piece of fabric I picked up from the op shop yesterday for 20c! It's only about 58cm wide and 33cm high which is not a lot to work with. I think it may have originally been curtain material.

Stocktake and Breakfast Crumble

Yesterday we did a stocktake of the shop. I have to say I really don't look forward to doing it. If you have ever done a stocktake before you will know what I mean. We had over 1,000 items to count which takes quite a few hours and is surprisingly tiring too. The silver lining is that we always go out to breakfast before we do stocktake. It's kind of like an unwritten stocktake rule and is supposed to make the day a little easier to bear.

We went to Mitte for our breakfast and that's where the breakfast crumble comes in to play. Mitte won Best Breakfast of the Year in the The Age Cheap Eats 2009 and it's well deserved. I had their breakfast crumble which involves cinnamon and vanilla poached pears and apples topped with a macadamia crumble and mascarpone. Absolutely awesome and a perfect way to start a day that involves doing something you really don't want to be doing. If you are in Melbourne I recommend checking them out, they have lots of other yummy breakfasts on offer and are located at 76 Michael St, Fitzroy North